Pretty Girls Like You
by Repenting Sirens
Summary: She's putting on the biggest performance of her life today, and everything about her must be pretty. She's playing Sleeping Beauty.


Disclaimer: I don't own. If I did own, Kurt would be a shameless slut and Kurtana would own McKinley High. Glee belongs to RIB and Fox. Although, I am quite foxy…hmm…

Author's Note: This was inspired by me finding the lipstick that my mother used to wear in my old bedroom and the fact that I've been in a very Santana-y mood today.

Warnings: Non-con, underage, bit of language, and denial.

* * *

The first time Santana Lopez wears her mother's bright red lipstick, she's six years old and doesn't understand. She stumbles out of her parent's bedroom, wearing ill fitting shiny black high heels and a too large t-shirt with coral-red covering her lips. She continues her trotting, until she comes across her mother and grandmother, and she grins.

Her teeth are smeared with the foul-tasting lipstick, and her mother and grandmother howl with laughter. She laughs along, even though she feels offended that they don't take her and her _very_ grown-up outfit seriously.

But then again, she was only six years old and _they_ all said she didn't understand.

* * *

The first time Santana Lopez wears her mother's dark blue eye shadow, she is eight years old and doesn't understand. She feels pretty, with dark blue surrounding her eyes and soft coral-red lipstick elegantly painted onto her lips.

She's putting on the biggest performance of her life today, and everything about her must be _beautiful_. She's going to play Aurora, or as she is famously know, Sleeping Beauty.

Santana doesn't like the Brothers Grimm version of story, which she found in her mother's bedroom. "The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales", the book cover proclaims, but she knows the title is a lie because some of the stories are missing their happy endings.

As she heads up the small stairs that lead to the stage, which feels so much _wider and longer_ than before but that may just be her nerves playing tricks on her; she feels _something_ touch the hem of her dress.

And then, she has a large slit down the left side of her once-magnificent blue dress.

She still confidently strides onto the stage and everything goes so wrong. Just like the incomplete fairy tales in her mother's book.

Mrs. Kiel, the school drama teacher who takes herself much _too_ seriously, is quickly rushing onto the stage and shoving her towards her mother, who has her brows furrowed and is biting her pretty petal pink lips.

In minutes, the small audience dispenses and Santana is lead off by her mother, who tells her that it's _okay_. Santana thinks that her mother has been reading that silly book too much and doesn't realize that unless there's a happy ending and an unremarkable prince, that nothing is okay.

For the rest of Santana's time in William T. Harris Elementary School, she never gets a big role in any of the plays. Mrs. Kiel is still the drama teacher and when Santana tries to audition for the lead role, she is told that unfortunately, and Santana may be only be eight but no one who regrets something has such an _awful_ look in their eyes, the role has already been given to the talented and _modest_ Miss Rachel Berry.

After that Santana doesn't try to audition for the lead roles and settles for small ones, like _Tree Number 2 _and _Shopkeeper_. Santana tells her mom that her life has turned into that _stupid_ Cinderella fairy tale and that Rachel will probably steal her prince away _as well_.

But then again, she was only eight years old and _they_ all said she didn't understand.

* * *

The first time Santana Lopez wears blush, she is ten and is heading to her fifth grade dance. Most of the kids in her grade are either turning eleven soon or are eleven, and they consider her strange for still being ten even though it's not her fault that she was born later than she should have been.

She has on a pretty pair of black high heel that fit _her_ this time, a dark blue dress, coral-red lipstick and light blue eye shadow. She feels less pretty than she did when she had worn her mother's dark blue eye shadow, but _her_ _sister_ had used it all up.

Adam Lynch asked her to the dance, and when she heads into the poorly decorated auditorium he's standing there by the refreshment table, wearing an unimportant suit and a _stupid_ light blue bowtie. He hands her a cup filled with bright red juice and takes a sip. It's fruit punch.

Later that night after Santana has spent most of her time standing in corners like a wallflower with Adam talking about how lame everything is and she goes along with it, even though she wants to dance so _badly_ like the blonde girl that everyone was crowding around, Adam asks her if she wants to go with him into the hall for some reason or another.

She nods her head and then Adam is holding her hand and dragging her into the hall. They stop in a hallway Santana had never walked through before, and then, rough lips are on hers.

He tastes like fruit punch and aggression.

After that kiss, Santana never wears coral-red lipstick again.

And when she gets home, Santana is still _amazed_ that she got home that day because Adam was nothing if not persistent, she tells her mother that her night should have been like Snow White's fairy tale ending. Her mom nods along, not really hearing, as she was wiping up the mess Santana's little sister had made with the blue eye shadow.

When Santana stops, her mom laughs and says that some girls don't get fairy tales, and that they're better off that way.

Santana feels like sobbing when her mother says that, but she's _a big girl who wears grown-up outfits and pretty make-up so she __**can't**_.

She was only ten years old and she was starting to understand.

* * *

The first time Santana Lopez wears skimpy clothing, she is thirteen years old and sort of understands. She feels _sexy_ in her black short-shorts and low-cut blood red shirt, and the way that Mr. Parrish spends most of English class staring at her legs only reassures her assessment.

When Mr. Parrish releases the class and asks her to stay behind, she only assumes that he may have noticed the way the she had spent most of class passing notes back and forth with Russ McClure and was about to chew her out for her behavior. Sure, she found it strange that he didn't ask Russ to stay as well, but adults were weird like that.

Santana didn't find it weird when Mr. Parrish's hands were on her shoulder, because other teachers did that as well. No, it wasn't weird, and it certainly wasn't scary.

It especially wasn't scary when Mr. Parrish's hands were roaming her body, and he said that if she told anyone she would be called a slutty cock tease.

No, it wasn't scary when he pushed in and, _**oh god did it hurt**_.

And no, it wasn't _scary and frustrating and painful and awful and oh god, stop please, stop, stop_—

No. It wasn't anything.

It was just a sign of how pretty she was.

It only meant she was super pretty that he continued to do so until she graduated from middle school.

And when she got home that day she told her mother, who hadn't listened in _years_, that she had finally become as pretty and as perfect as Sleeping Beauty was, she didn't break down and cry her heart out. No, she didn't, because she's _a big girl who wears grown-up outfits, pretty make-up, was so pretty and pretty girls aren't allowed to cry when they found out what pretty girls did to be pretty._

She was only thirteen years old, but now she understood.

* * *

The first time Santana sleeps with a guy willingly, she is fourteen years old and it doesn't hurt.

A week later, she becomes the school slut.

Her mother can't look her in the eye anymore.

She spends the rest of week listening to songs from movies based on fairy tales.

"Dancing bears, painted wings

Things I almost remember

And a song someone sings

Once upon a December

Someone holds me safe and warm—"

Her mother throws away her "The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales" that same week, because _"if you're old enough to do that,"_ and for a moment all Santana can see is the look Mrs. Kiel used to give her, _"then you're obviously too old to be reading fairy tales."_

Santana only turns up her music louder.

* * *

The first time Santana has sex with Brittany, she doesn't remember it in years or how pretty she feels. Brittany doesn't make her feel pretty, because being pretty hurts and Brittany makes her feel _good_.

Brittany makes her feel _adored and special and everything that she's never __**been**__._

And a week later, as she and Brittany stop by the library because Brittany needs to get Lord Tubbington a book to read so that he won't read her diary, she finds a copy of "The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales" and thinks that the silly book was right.

Because in the end, even though her fairy tale was unhappy and Rachel _did_ get the prince, Santana got the remarkable princess. Being with a forever confused Anastasia was better than being with a dull Prince Charm.

And for once, Santana doesn't need to be pretty Sleeping Beauty.

She just needs to be Santana.


End file.
